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It’s just me this week – sneaking one last episode in to talk about my own personal top-10 horror novels (or horror-ish) from the last twelve months. 

It’s been a stellar year, and picking just ten books was a nightmare all of it’s own. But these things must be done. The world MUST know what one more straight, white guy thinks about culture, or society will collapse.  

I hope you enjoy this as I get more and more animated as things go on. It’s a good job I’m taking next week off – I’m starting to sound manic. 

Have a great new year folks, and thanks for all your kindness and support this year.

Here’s to 2022… it surely can’t be any worse.  

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Well, we made it to the end of this nightmare of a year. And though there has been plenty of horrific stuff along the way – war, plague, corruption … literal armed insurrection, at least the fictional horror has been fun. 

To commemorate a special year in horror, I’m getting the band back together. Sadie  Hartmann, AKA Mother Horror, and Emily Hughes of Tor Nightfire (and various other parishes) join me to talk about the stuff they have loved from the second half** of 2021. 

**if you missed our coverage of Jan-June, you can find it in episode 46.

We pick the books that really stood out for us, plus many more that we enjoyed. We discuss the TV and movies that have shaken and stirred us since July, and we look ahead to the bright (dead)lights of horror to come in the New Year. 

We also pick apart some thorny issues plaguing the genre, like the ridiculousness of rating books by stars, and my own irritation at everything being compared to Get Out.

Each of the books we mention is listed below, including an episode number if it has been previously featured on Talking Scared. Don’t look at that yet though; it’ll spoil the surprise.

Enjoy, and well done for getting through the year. 

Books picked

Coming soon

Other books mentioned

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This week I bring you a ghost story, as befitting the season. Though it’s a little more lurid than Charles Dickens would have liked.

The guest is A.J. West;   the book is The Spirit Engineer. It’s one of my very favourites of 2021. 

Set in Belfast between the sinking of the Titanic and the outbreak of war, it’s a tale of science and the supernatural. Of William Crawford, a man who wants proof of the beyond, and will risk everything to grasp it. It’s actually based on real people and events, which I didn’t know, and still find incredible.

A.J and I talk about spiritualism and deceit, about the links between sex and seances, and about the rare appearance of a truly unlikeable male protagonist. We disagree a little, AJ thinks William’s he’s an antihero, I think he’s an asshole, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is the standout character of the year for me.

I hope you get chance to pour a drink, pull up a chair, and read this book over Christmas. 

Enjoy  

You can read more about the story behind The Spirit Engineer on A.J’s website, ajwestauthor.com

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This week I am going to utterly ruin your festive mood!

My guest is Ross Jeffery – author of Juniper, Tome (for which he was Bram Stoker nominated) and numerous short stories. His work is grim, gritty, gory and other words beginning with G - but they are nothing compared to the sheer horror of his latest work, Only the Stains Remain.

Yeah, this is one of those special episodes in which I feel duty-bound to roll out the trigger warnings. Only the Stains Remain is about child abuse, and it pulls no punches. Feeling festive yet, Ho Ho Ho, etc. The novella is a savage revenge-trip of blood and guts in which awful things happen – but thankfully – often to awful people.

So, you’ve been warned. 

But also be reassured. Neither the conversation, nor Ross’s book goes into exploitative details – and we manage to talk about a surprising number of very jolly things - from why Ross is drawn to such extreme projects, why writing for shock alone never really works, what it was like to be Bram Stoker-ed out of the blue, and what the members of Ross’ church make of his writing.

It’s a mix of the horrific and the wholesome this week. Which could describe most of my Christmases. 

Enjoy 

Books discussed in this episode include:

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I know it’s the middle of winter but this week the book in question is taking us back to summer. And not our current plague-summer – but the halcyon days of 1989. Think kids on bikes, running wild, fights and first loves, demonic deer gods … wait … what?

Our guest, Wendy N. Wagner is the editor-in-chief of the prestigious Nightmare Magazine, and the author of epic coming-of-age horror The Deer Kings, as well as the ‘Sawmill Gothic’, The Secret Skin. We talk about both books and how Wendy has transposed both the classic British Gothic and the traditional New England small-town horror story to a Pacific Northwest setting.

Bigfoot doesn’t even show his face.

We talk about the fervid popularity of coming-of-age horror right now, we plumb the dark, seamy underbelly of rural Oregon, we compare notes on the small towns of our childhoods, and I have the temerity to ask Wendy the best way to get published in Nightmare. 

There is even doughnut chat. 

Enjoy!

Books discussed in this episode include: 

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If you are feeling depressed, what with OMICRON emerging like the worst villain in some direct-to-streaming video game adaptation, then do I have the tonic for you.

Josh Malerman is back for his second bout of Talking Scared, only 6 months after he was last here. This time, more than ever, he brings joy, wonder, inspiration and a 700 page book that will work your triceps as well as your mind and soul.  

Ghoul n’ the Cape is Josh’s magnum opus, so far. So far! It’s the truly epic tale of two men fleeing a unique evil across the entire landmass of the United States. It takes in politics, violence, spectacle, horror, friendship, a nation-eating star and a man made entirely of blood. This is not your average horror paperback.

Therefore, it gives us plenty to talk about. The Great American Novel™ and the quest narrative amongst much more. But again, and again we come back to the crucial, pivotal role of awe and wonder in our lives. And we talk about how horror, of all things, can help us achieve that. 

Oh, and at one point I make Josh teary. Win!

Enjoy!

Books discussed in this episode include:

Ghoul n’ the Cape is published in a limited run in December by Earthling Press. You can buy one of the remaining copies here.

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And now for something a little different.

This is a show about scary stories and writing horror… but that doesn’t mean everything has to be on the page. Our guest this week is Richard Maclean Smith, host and producer of Unexplained Podcast, the best show out there on the creepy, mysterious and mystifying events that people like me spend hours reading about on Wikipedia. 

There is everything from true crime to strange disappearances, ghosts and demons, monsters and UFOs, as well as some more unique oddities, like a woman killed by the ‘little folk’ and a computer that may have communicated through time.

God I love me some High Strangeness.

Ok, I’ll throw you a bone, he also has a book to complement the podcast. That book – Unexplained: Real Life Supernatural Stories for Uncertain Times delves deeper into a selection of particularly weird events, whilst also giving Richard more room to expand beyond the mystery, into the areas of philosophy, psychology and humanism that really fascinates him. Cos that’s what set’s Unexplained apart – that reflection and interrogation of the human condition.

We talk about all that, but I’m a mystery nerd, and I insist on simpler questions like, “what’s your favourite mystery” too, and we talk about vanishing hikers, cursed boxes and possessed murderers, as well as fear of the dark and dreams about Mikhail Gorbachev.    

I’m always there for you listeners, ready to dumb it down.

Enjoy!

Follow the link for Richard’s horror fiction podcast, The Fountain Road Files

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For over three decades Ellen Datlow has been at the centre of the horror community. She is the queen of editors, the doyenne of anthologisers, the person who gets to declare what is the Best Horror of the Year.

And she has come back to talk to me after I lost the conversation file the first time around…!

That major mishap may have been a blessing in disguise, as since then she has published two standout anthologies, dealing with very different branches of horror. Body Shocks is a bumper collection of extremely nasty body horror; When It Gets Dark is a collection of stories inspired by the life and work of Shirley Jackson. One is icky, one is spooky, one makes you cringe, the other makes you shiver. And both are packed with stellar names. 

As well as discussing these anthologies, we talk about Ellen’s career in horror, how she does what she does, and what words like ‘horror’ and ‘scary’ mean to her. She talks about big names she worked with, and gives us some ideas on who the big names of tomorrow will be.

Oh, and she also lets slip that she collects doll limbs … a perfect little nugget to season this mix.

Enjoy. 

Body Shocks: Extreme Tales of Body Horror is out now from Tachyon Press

When Things Gets Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson is out now from Titan Press

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

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This week I’m feeling warm and fuzzy (don’t worry it won’t last). Halloween is over, the weather has turned dark, we’ve all got the central heating on and are hunkering down for the end of the year. What better time for a slightly more cosy read?

Our guest this week is Mark Stay, author, screenwriter, and one half of the quite wonderful Bestseller Experiment podcast. Usually Mark is in my chair, asking author’s all about how to be a successful writer – but this week I’ve literally turned the table on him. 

Mark’s latest novel – Babes in the Wood – is the second in his Witches of Woodville series. It continues the small village exploits of Faye, magical ingenue, budding witch, and all-round take-no-nonsense-from-nobody heroine. As the second world war rages over the sea, the tiny village of Woodville comes under attack once more from dark, sorcerous forces (this time it’s NAZIS!!)

Told you it sounded cosy!

No worries though. Aside from the inherent darkness beneath Mark’s whimsy, we also pack in enough nightmare fuel with a lengthy discussion of the most horrifying 80s kids’ TV characters, the all-too-real horrors of nostalgic nationalism, and I ask Mark for some gossip about the author’s he’s spoken to.

There’s a lot to enjoy here. Get the kettle on!

Babes in the Wood  was published on October 28th by Simon & Schuster 

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

Trailer for Mark’s new horror-movie Unwelcome

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Halloween is over for another year but there are still plenty of monsters to go around.

Our guest this week is Kim Newman, the writer, critic and encyclopaedic authority on horror, pulp and the dark recesses of cinematic history. You may know him as the author of the Anno Dracula series, but that’s only the tip of his imaginative iceberg.

Kim’s new novel, Something More than Night, takes all of that arcane knowledge and puts it to use – transporting us back to the Hollywood of the 1930s when fascism is on the rise and it’s hard to tell the movie monsters from the real madmen. Cue the pairing of horror-icon Boris Karloff and gumshoe writer Raymond Chandler, who unite to confront some very strange goings on behind the scenes.

In between educating me on the finer points of Hollywood history, Kim talks about the enduring legacy of Frankenstein, imitating Chandler’s unique style, writing novels in a connected universe  - and we realise just how similar he is to Quention Tarantino. 

This one is an absolute blast.

Enjoy! 

Something More than Night was published on November 2nd by Titan Books.

Other books mentioned in this episode include:

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